Come the Night

It was the same with every cop he met on the way to the reception desk. Guys who’d been closer to him than brothers turned their backs as he went by. He heard more than one curse crackling in the air behind him. The young officer at the desk gave him a cold stare and suddenly became absorbed in his paperwork.

“I’m here to see Art Bowen,” Ross said.

The officer pretended not to hear him. Ross leaned over the desk, forcing the uniform to lean back.

“He’s expecting me,” Ross said. “Why don’t you be a good kid and let him know I’m here?”

The young cop obviously wanted to go on ignoring Ross. Nevertheless, he picked up the telephone and did as Ross asked, resentment in every line of his body.

Art came into the room five minutes later. He didn’t offer his hand.

“Hello, Ross,” he said.

“Art.” Ross looked past his shoulder. “You said you have my—”

Art made a cautionary gesture and glanced at the uniform behind the desk. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”

Ross nodded and dropped into step behind Art. He’d endured another half-dozen cold shoulders by the time they reached one of the interrogations rooms. Art waved Ross in ahead of him and locked the door.

Sitting behind the table was a smallish kid who could have been anywhere between nine and twelve years old. He jumped up as soon as he saw Ross, and they stared at each other in mutual fascination.

The first thing Ross noticed was that Tobias looked exactly like his mother. Oh, not feminine in any way, but fine-boned and intelligent, a little wary, with even and unremarkable features, light brown hair and Gillian’s hazel eyes. His smell was distinctly his own, but it held traces of something half-familiar. Something that reminded Ross as much of himself as Gillian.

“Is this your son, Ross?” Art asked behind him.

Ross looked for any sign of himself in the kid. Maybe there was something in the chin, the line of the mouth, the straight and serious brows. Or maybe that was just an illusion.

The boy stepped forward. “How do you do, sir,” he said. His voice, like Warbrick’s, was that of a cultured resident of England, high with eleven-year-old nervousness, but clear and strong. The kid wasn’t afraid. Of that much Ross was certain.

“Hello, Tobias,” he said, his own voice less than steady.

“Toby, sir. If you don’t mind.”

Art cleared his throat. “I guess you aren’t surprised to see him,” he said. “I didn’t know you had any children.”

Ross couldn’t think of a single good way to answer that question. “How much has he told you?”

“Just that he’s come all the way from England to see you. Looks like he came alone.”

“I did,” Toby said, lifting his chin. He eyed Art warily. “Am I under arrest?”

Laughter caught in Ross’s throat. “What have you been telling him, Art?”

“Nothing.” He gave Ross a direct look that suggested he had more to say on that subject. “I made a few calls. No record of a kid by his name on any ship’s manifest.”

Warbrick had said he’d stowed away. Suddenly feeling far older than his thirty-one years, Ross crouched to the boy’s level.

My son.

He took himself firmly in hand. The only way he was going to be able to deal with this mess was by treating it like any other case. Leave everything personal out of it.

“Tobias—” he began.

“Toby,” the boy said, meeting his gaze.

“Toby. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I expect you to answer them honestly.”

“Of course, Father.”

Funny how much of a punch such a common word could pack.

“Did you really travel on a ship from England by yourself?” he asked.

“I wasn’t any trouble. No one knew I was there.”

“But you didn’t tell anyone you’d left home.”

Toby gazed down at his badly scuffed shoes. “No,” he said quietly.

“How long have you been in New York?”

Toby brushed at his soiled short pants, which Ross guessed he’d been wearing for several days, if not longer. “Just a few days,” he said. He mover closer to Ross and lowered his voice. “I think someone was after me,” he said, “so I hid until they went away.”

“Who was after you?”

“I thought they might be gangsters, but I don’t really have anything worth stealing.”

Ross glanced at the battered suitcase standing beside the table. It might have held a couple of changes of clothing and a few other necessities, but not much else. “I don’t think it was gangsters, Toby. But if you thought you were in danger, you should have come straight to the police.”

“Maybe it was the police,” Toby whispered, rolling his eyes in Art’s direction. “I had to come here because it was the only way I knew how to find you.” Unexpectedly, he grinned, the expression transforming his features the same way Gillian’s smiles had always done. “I knew you’d come for me.”

Ross straightened, reminding himself not to swear in front of a kid. “Okay,” he said. “I need to talk to Art for a few minutes. Can you wait here a little longer?”

“Of course, Father.”

With a wince, Ross turned for the door. Art went with him.

“You didn’t know about him, did you?” Art said as soon as they were in the corridor.

There wasn’t any way to avoid answering, and Ross didn’t see the point in lying. “Not until this morning,” he admitted.

Art nodded sympathetically. “The War?”

“Something like that.”

Mercifully, Art didn’t pursue that line of questioning. “Did Warbrick come to see you?” he asked.

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah. He came in first thing this morning, asking to speak to the Chief. I got stuck with him.” Art’s lip curled in contempt. “He demanded that we inform him if a certain kid turned up. Said the boy had run away and might come to the station.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“It came out after he asked where you lived. Except he claimed the kid mistakenly thought you were his father, and made noises about going higher up if we didn’t do exactly as he said.” Art snorted. “Damned Limey, thinks he can lord it over us.”

“He showed up at my place with the same story,” Ross said. “I threw him out.”

Speculation brimmed in Art’s eyes. He controlled it. “I wasn’t much in the mood to kowtow to Warbrick, so when the kid turned up, I called you instead of him.”

“Thanks, Art. I owe you one.”

Art shrugged. “I can always play dumb if the higher-ups come after me,” he said. “Only a couple of uniforms know he’s here, so you can…” He hesitated. “You are going to take him, aren’t you?”

Ross saw the chasm opening up before him. He knew he could walk away, find out where Ethan Warbrick was staying and send Tobias to him, just as Mrs. Delvaux wanted.

But it wasn’t that easy. Ross couldn’t look away from the cold hard evidence of the boy’s parentage. Gillian’s son.

His son.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll take him.”

Art’s relief was obvious. “Right. It might be a good idea to go out the back door.”

Ross nodded, and then an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “He doesn’t know…you didn’t tell him…”

“No. As far as he knows, you still work here.”

“That’s another one I owe you.”

Art shifted his weight. “Do you, uh…if you need a little cash, I’d be glad to—”

“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Ross said, more sharply than he’d intended. “The kid won’t starve before he gets back to England.”

Their eyes met, and Ross realized what he’d just said. He’d already assumed he was sending Toby back to his mother.

And what else are you supposed to do with him?

“I gotta get back to work,” Art said. “Take care, Ross.”

They shook hands. Art strode away, his thoughts probably on whatever case he was working on now. The way Ross’s would have been not so long ago.

Hell.

Ross blew out his breath and opened the interrogation room door. Toby sprang back as the door swung in, guilt flashing across his face.

What did you expect? Ross thought. He walked past Toby and picked up the suitcase.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Are we going home?” Toby asked, hurrying to join him.

Home? “To my place, yes,” he said. Where else was there to go?

He led Toby down the corridor and around several corners until they reached one of the back doors, encountering only a couple of detectives along the way. If Toby noticed their stares, he didn’t let on. The door opened up onto an alley, where several patrol cars were parked. Ross continued on to West Fifty-fourth Street and kept walking, one eye on Toby, until they’d left the station some distance behind. Only then did he stop, pull Toby out of the crowd of busy pedestrians and ask the rest of his questions.

“How did you find out I’m your father?” he asked.

Toby’s body began to vibrate, as if he could barely contain his emotions. “Mother wrote it all down. She didn’t think I’d ever find out, but I…” The spate of words trickled to a stop. “You are my father.”

It was as much question as statement, the one crack of uncertainty in the boy’s otherwise confident facade.

“I know you didn’t expect me,” Toby said, slipping into a surprisingly engaging diffidence. “Mother never told you about me. She was never going to tell me, either. That was wrong, wasn’t it?”

If it hadn’t been for the boy’s age, Ross might have suspected he was being played. But Toby was as sincere as any eleven-year-old kid could be.

“You said she wrote it all down,” Ross said. “Did she say…why she didn’t want to tell us?”

“Yes.” Tobias frowned, a swift debate going on behind his eyes. “But it doesn’t matter to me, Father. I don’t care if you’re only part werewolf and can’t Change.”

Ross was careful not to let his face reveal his emotions. He’d known, of course. Lovesick fool that he’d been, even at nineteen he’d been able to guess the reason why she’d left him.

“You aren’t angry, are you?” Toby said into the silence. “You won’t send me back? I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

Ross stifled a laugh. Trouble? Hell, none of this was the kid’s fault. Ross knew who to blame. And she didn’t even have the courage to face the situation she’d created.

With a little bit of help from you, Ross, me boyo…

Toby continued to gaze up at him, committed to the belief that had carried him across the Atlantic. If there was the slightest trace of doubt in his eyes, it was buried by stubborn determination. And blind, foolish, unshakable faith. Just like the kind Ross had had, once upon a time.

A small, firm hand worked its way into his.

“Are you all right?” Toby asked, his eyes as worried as they had been resolute a moment before.

The feel of that trusting hand was unlike anything Ross could remember. He felt strangely humbled and deeply inadequate. Nothing and no one had made him feel that way in a very long time.

“I’m all right, kid,” he said. “It’s just that I’m not exactly used to this sort of thing.”

“Neither am I.”

Ross bit back another laugh. Toby only reached halfway up to his chest, but he was every bit as precocious as Warbrick had said. Maybe that would make it easier.

Easier to do what? To convince him he has to go back to his mother? That whatever he thinks he’s looking for, I’m not it?

“I gotta warn you, Toby,” he said, “The way you’re used to living…well, I’m pretty sure it’s a lot different from my place.”

Toby gave a little bounce of excitement, as if something tightly wound inside him was beginning to give way. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve read Dashiell Hammett. I know all about American detectives.”

Ross rolled his eyes. How did a kid his age get hold of Hammett’s books, especially in England? That was rough stuff for an eleven-year-old boy. And it had probably given him ideas no real cop or detective could live up to. Especially not Ross Kavanagh.

To think that just a few hours ago he’d thought his problems couldn’t get any worse.

Start simple, he told himself. “You hungry?” he asked.

Toby turned on that high-voltage grin. “Oh, yes! May we have frankfurters, please?”

“You’ve never had a hot dog?”

“I’ve only read about them. They must be the cat’s pajamas.”

The American slang sounded funny coming out of this kid’s mouth. “Yeah. The height of gourmet dining.” Ross spotted a vendor down the street, a guy he’d known almost as long as he’d been on the job.

“Mr. Kavanagh!” Petrocelli said cheerfully. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

You had to give it to Petrocelli. He’d never indicated that he knew anything about Ross’s disgrace, even though it had been in all the papers. “Two dogs, Luigi. Easy on the sauerkraut.”

“You bet.” The man began slathering two buns with mustard, ketchup and sauerkraut. Toby stood on his toes and watched, politely restrained, but clearly ravenous. He thanked the vendor very graciously, glanced at Ross for permission, then bit into his hot dog with every indication of pure bliss, just like any redblooded American boy.

“Relative of yours?” Petrocelli asked. “There’s something familiar about him.”

The vendor’s casual words hit Ross like a line drive. He grabbed Toby and pulled him away before he was tempted to make up some pathetic story about a long-lost nephew.

At least the long-lost part is accurate.

Oblivious to Ross’s turmoil, Toby drifted along the sidewalk, hot dog in hand, turning in slow circles as he took in the towering buildings on every side. Ross plucked him from the edge of the kerb when he would have walked right into the street.

“Listen, kid,” he said, planting Toby in front of him. “This is New York. Haven’t you ever been in a big city before?”

Toby gazed at him with the slightly blank expression of a rube just off the train from Podunk. “Grandfather, Mother and I went to London once, when I was very small. I don’t really remember.”

Ross was momentarily distracted by thoughts of Gillian and grimly forced his attention back to the matter at hand. “London ain’t New York,” he said. “You can get yourself hurt a hundred different ways here if you’re not careful.”

“Oh! You don’t have to worry. I can take care of myself.”

Ross tried to imagine what it must have been like for a little boy to cross the ocean alone and make his way from the docks to Midtown without adult assistance. The kid had guts, no doubt of that. “Do you have any money?” he asked.

Toby plunged his hand into his trousers and removed a wad of badly crinkled bills. “I have pound notes and a few American dollars,” he said. “Do you need them, Father?”

Damn. “You hold on to them for now.” He frowned at Toby’s gray tweed suit with its perfectly cut jacket and short trousers, now disheveled and stained. “That the only outfit you’ve got?”

“Oh, no. I have another suit in my bag. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to change.”

His expression was suddenly anxious, as if he expected Ross to blame him for the state of his clothes. Ross reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m down to my last clean shirt myself. Guys in my line of work—” my former line of work “—don’t always have time to look pretty.”

Toby relaxed for about ten seconds before his facile mind latched on to a new subject. “Have you arrested lots of criminals, Father?”

Ross wondered why he was so bent on making the kid think well of him. “I’ve taken a few bad guys off the streets in my day.”

“Capital!” Toby’s eyes swept the streets as if he expected a mobster to appear right in front of them. “Do you think we’ll meet any bootleggers?” he asked eagerly.

“We aren’t going to see any bootleggers, mobsters or criminals of any kind.”

Toby’s face fell. “You said New York was dangerous.”

“It’s not like there’s a gunfight every few minutes. You just have to be careful.” He resisted the urge to take out his handkerchief and wipe a bit of mustard from Toby’s upper lip. “You wouldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t pretty good at that.”

Another lightning-quick change of mood and Toby was grinning again. “Will you show me all around New York? Will we see the Woolworth Building and Coney Island?”

Ross cleared his throat. He still wasn’t prepared to lie to the kid, but he didn’t have to tell the whole truth, either. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “You need a wash-up, first. And a nap.”

“Oh, I don’t take naps anymore.”

“You will today.”

Toby groaned. “You sound just like Mother.”

Ross grabbed Toby’s hand and flagged down a taxi. “How is she?” he asked.

The question was out before he could stop it. Don’t kid yourself. You’d have asked it sooner or later.

“Oh, she’s all right.”

Ross said nothing until a cab pulled up, and he and Toby were in the backseat. “Does she live alone?” he asked. “I mean…” Idiot. He shut up before he dug the hole any deeper.

But Toby was too bright to have missed his intent. “I haven’t got another father,” he said. “I always knew my real father wasn’t dead.”

“Mr. Delvaux…”

“Mother never talked about him. I’m not even sure he’s real.”

“You mean your mother wasn’t really married?”

Now you’ve done it, he thought. But Toby didn’t seem to be offended.

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “Some of the pages in her diary were missing, but there was enough in it to help me find you.”

Gillian had kept a diary. About him. And she’d somehow known that he’d gone into the force when he returned to America. He hadn’t even thought about it himself until he was standing on the East River docks, trying to think of the best way to forget Gillian Maitland.

Why hadn’t she forgotten him?

“Didn’t you think how upset your mother would be when you ran away?” he asked, resolutely focusing on the present.

Toby hunched his shoulders. “She has enough things to worry about.”

Ross swallowed the questions that immediately popped into his head. “Your mother has done a lot more than just worry.”

A speculative look came into Toby’s hazel eyes. “How do you know that, Father?”

“She sent someone to look for you. A man called Ethan Warbrick.”

“Uncle Ethan?” Toby’s forehead creased with concern. “Don’t tell him I’m here.” He tugged at Ross’s sleeve. “Please, Father.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“He’s all right, but…” He lowered his voice. “I think he wants to marry my mother.”

“War—Uncle Ethan isn’t a werewolf, is he?”

Toby looked up at him curiously. “No,” he said. “Did you think he was?”

“He knows all about werewolves.”

“Mother and Uncle Ethan were secret friends when they were children.”

“Does she want to marry Uncle Ethan?” he asked, cursing himself for his weakness.

“I don’t know,” Toby said slowly, as if he’d given the matter some thought. “You wouldn’t let him, would you?”

Ross didn’t get a chance to come up with an answer, because the cab had arrived at his building and someone was standing by the door. Someone Ross recognized the moment she turned her head and looked straight into his eyes.

Gillian Maitland.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE’D CHANGED.

Oh, not so much in outward appearance; she’d always thought of herself as plain, but to Ross, she’d been beautiful from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her in the hospital. She still was. Her features were a little stronger now, a little more fully formed with experience and maturity; the faintest of lines radiated out from the outer corners of her eyes; and her golden hair had grown long, gathered in an old-fashioned chignon at the base of her slender neck.

No, it wasn’t so much her appearance that had altered, or the cut of her clothing. Her suit was conservative, the skirt reaching below her knees, the long jacket and high-necked blouse sober and without embellishments of any kind. Ross remembered when he’d first seen her out of uniform; she’d been very proper even then, as far from being a “modern girl” as he could have imagined. Nor had her scent changed, that intriguing combination of natural femininity and lavender soap.

But her eyes…oh, that was where Ross saw the difference. They were cool and distant, even as her expression registered the natural shock of seeing him again after so many years. The hazel depths he’d always admired were barred like a prison, holding the world at bay. Behind those bars crouched emotions Ross couldn’t read, experiences he hadn’t been permitted to share. And a heart as frigid as an ice storm in January.

She looked from his face to Toby’s, and her straight, slender body unbent with relief. He’d been wrong. Her heart wasn’t cold. Not where her son was concerned.

“Toby,” she said. “Thank God.”

Toby stood very still, his face ashen. He began to walk toward his mother, not unlike a prisoner going to his well-earned punishment. Gillian knelt on the rough pavement and smiled, her eyes coming to life.

“Mother,” Toby said, his voice catching, and walked into her arms.

Gillian closed her eyes, kissed Toby’s flushed cheek and held him tight for a dozen heartbeats. Then she let him go and stood up, keeping her hand on her son’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said to Ross, sincere and utterly formal. “Thank you for finding him.”

Ross opened his mouth to answer and found his tongue as thick and unwieldy as a block of concrete. “I didn’t find him,” he managed to say at last. “He found me.”

“At the police station,” Toby offered, his brief moment of repentance already vanished. He looked from Ross to his mother, wide-eyed innocence concealing something uncomfortably like calculation. “You needn’t have worried, Mother. I was never in any danger.”

Gillian tightened her fingers on his shoulder, her gaze steady on Ross’s. “I’m sorry that you were put to so much trouble,” she said. “I didn’t know he had left England until the ship had already departed.”

“Yeah.” Ross locked his hands behind his back. “Your friend Ethan Warbrick told me the story. He implied that you weren’t coming.”

The barest hint of color touched Gillian’s smooth cheeks. “Perhaps Lord Warbrick misunderstood.” She glanced away. “Again, I apologize, Mr. Kavanagh. If you’ve incurred any expenses…”

“I bought him a hot dog,” Ross said, a wave of heat rising under his collar. “It didn’t exactly break the bank.” He smiled the kind of smile he reserved for suspects in the interrogation room. “As I told Warbrick, I don’t need any ‘consideration,’ either.”

“I don’t understand.”

That little hint of vulnerability was a nice touch, Ross thought. “Tell Warbrick he can tear up the check.”

“The—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. You mustn’t think such a thing, Ross. You—” She caught herself, donning the mantle of aristocratic dignity again. “We shan’t trouble you any longer, Mr. Kavanagh.”

She turned to go, taking Toby with her. He dug in his heels and wouldn’t budge. Ross pushed past the burning wall of his anger and crossed the space between them until he was blocking her path of escape.

“Is that it?” he asked softly. “Nothing else to say…Mrs. Delvaux?”

Most people would have shrunk away from the finely tuned menace in Ross’s voice. Gillian wasn’t most people.

“I had not thought,” she said, “that you would wish to prolong the conversation.”

“I didn’t know we were having one,” he said. “Not the kind you’d expect between old friends.”

Gillian understood him. She understood him very well, but she wasn’t about to crack. “This is neither the time nor the place,” she said, holding on to Toby as if she expected him to bolt.

Ross showed his teeth. “As it so happens,” he said, “my schedule is pretty open at the moment. You pick the time and place. I’ll be there.”